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# professionalism (?)

- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 07:29:10 PST
- From:

    Mr. Boyken, you raise some good points. However, I must disagree with you
    for several reasons:

    The majority of MOO operators, IMHO, are quite ethical in their MOO behavior.
    They have put up a MOO because of an interest they have, and one they hope
    will attract people with the same interests. They do not get paid. They invest
    huge amounts of time. If they are simply there to snoop on mail, the MOO
    will not go far. So this discussion is really only about the few and far
    between that are not ethical in their behavior. To characterize all MOO admin
    as unprofessional, is unfair.

    After all, I have heard about system administrators who have sniffed on their
    users' data, sometimes for no reason at all. I am sure, given the chance in
    public before being caught, they would have said that, of course, they fully
    abide by the system administrator's code of conduct. (SAGE was it?) Does this
    mean all system administrators are rotten? Of course not.

    To have a law in place that means anything, there has to be a policing group.
    And given the nature of much of this stuff we are discussing right now,
    usually a policing group is not possible. And quite intrusive in any case.

    Rather, I think the best policing group is MOO users (as well as system
    users), and MOO admin. Word gets around quickly when a MOO is shown to be
    fraudulent. Same thing happens for a Internet provider. Then they get
    avoided.

    Now, back to the question of rights of Admin, and policing. As far as I am
    concerned, as a MOO admin myself, my MOO is my property. I share it with
    my user base. I respect my user base, and in turn they respect me. But if I
    snuck into someone's mail account, would they know? Probably not. And if you
    snuck into someone's mail account, would they know, either? Again, no. What
    stops us? That we have invested time in the system, and that we care about
    it. Most MOO admin are like this.

    Although they may have disputes with users; they may be unfair to someone,
    somewhere, usually they do what they do because they think that is best for
    the system, and frankly, I think they *should* be the final judge. The system
    is theirs.

    But, as I said before, if a MOO admin does not care about his system, it
    quickly shows. They'll lose.

    I am sorry if I was somewhat incoherent in this message. I had to leave to a
    meeting in the midst of it. But I also hope my general point got across.

    Nick Paunovic, Advanced Product & Test Engineering Software Development
    Digital Semiconductor. E-mail: paunovic@cntrol.enet.dec.com
    [disclaimer: my views are not necessarily those of my employer.]

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